debkafile's sources disclose exclusively that, contrary to reports in Washington, Jerusalem - and this site too - it was Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, not the Obama administration, who called off the joint US-Israeli military exercise Austere Challenge 12, a step unprecedented in Israel-US relations. Netanyahu acted when he judged the Obama administration's resolve to preempt a nuclear Iran to be flagging. His action also aimed at freeing Israel's hands for a unilateral strike on Iran's nuclear sites - if necessary.

The US and Israel, while bound tightly by military bonds, are at loggerheads over Iran. The Obama administration wants to cut Israel out of military action against Iran's nuclear sites and prevent it hitting back for an Iranian reprisal. Israel is withholding a commitment to abstain from striking Iran unilaterally.

Washington and Jerusalem were dismayed to discover last week that Egypt's transitional military rulers (SCAF) were preparing to drop the reins of government and hand them over - lock, stock and barrel, including the armed forces - to civilian rule, i.e., the Muslim Brotherhood, at the earliest opportunity. By staying mute while this process ripened, Israel emboldened Muslim Brotherhood leaders to reiterate that they were not bound by any pledges to Washington to uphold the 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

Against Tehran's bid to dictate the Persian Gulf's rules of navigation, the US and GCC are preparing to fight together or separately against any attempts to prevent free movement through the oil route. They would aim to recapture the three Persian Gulf islands held by Iran, which are the key to controlling the Strait of Hormuz traffic.

Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi Monday, Dec. 26, replied to Sunday's debkafile report which revealed Tehran's plan to use its big 10-day naval drill east of the Strait of Hormuz to test its vaunted cyber intelligence prowess against US warships. He said Iran has great capabilities in "all fields of national defense, including the use of intelligence drones." The Islamic Republic, he said, could employ aerial drones to counter any potential US-led covert war. But he did not refer to a full-scale war offensive.

Cypriot President Demetris Christofias has warned Turkey to stop its warships shelling the strip of water dividing the Cypriot and Israeli gas exploration zones in the eastern Mediterranean.debkafile's military forces report that Wednesday, Dec. 21, Turkish warships began turning their guns on the narrow strip dividing Israel's Leviathan gas field from Block 12 of Cyprus's Exclusive Economic Zone-EEZ. Estimates of the sizes of the two fields have been substantially upped of late. Both see prospects of becoming major gas suppliers to Europe.

The sudden death of Kim Jong II of a heart attack aged 69, Monday, Dec. 19 confronts the world for the first time since the Cold War with a leaderless nuclear power about which it knows almost nothing. Though anointed heir, his youngest son Kim Jong-un is not expected to ride in without being challenged. The inevitable power struggle, which could be drawn out for years, may generate violence on and around the Peninsula and greater North Korean involvement in the Middle East nuclear race.

Syria has moved Scud missiles, some tipped with chemical warheads, to its border with Turkey, reinforced its tank units on the Jordanian border and airlifted from Russia three million face masks against chemical and biological weapons.

President Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan have developed relations of mutual trust which allowed the US to set up its headquarters for the campaign to oust Bashar Assad in southwest Turkey. The next US-inspired step is to foment a campaign of civil obedience against the Assad regime, starting in Aleppo.

Tehran was galvanized by the capture of the US drone into a spurt for spreading its diplomatic wings and showing the departing Americans who is the boss in Baghdad. An Iranian delegation sought to persuade Riyadh to help stabilize the regime in Damascus by forcing Bashar Assad to co-opt opposition factions to his government.

The US will not review its reconnaissance drone flights over Iran for fear they will also be downed and captured like the RQ-170. Iran could not have accomplished this coup alone because it would have required the technology for filtering through billions of coded communications relayed from Langley to satellites and cracking the coded links from Langley to one satellite and from satellite to drone.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi visited Riyadh Monday, Dec. 12 with a large delegation and a proposition for Crown Prince Nayef: For an anti-US and anti-Zionist pact on regional issues, Tehran would act to bring the Syrian opposition into government and open its nuclear program to Saudi participation. Moslehi boasted that after seizing top US secret drone technology by a successful cyber attack, Iran was unquestionably the top regional power. The Saudis moved fast to take the ayatollahs down a peg or two.

By deploying US troops on the Jordanian-Syrian border, the Obama administration played the last piece of its master game for Bashar Assad's ouster – in conjunction with Turkey, France, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's latest issue out Friday offers glimpses of covert US action in Syria alongside counter-steps pursued by Damascus, Tehran and Hizballah.
The next in our series of US RQ-170 exclusives reveals not just how Iran tampered with the stealth drone technology but also with the satellite controlling it.

Units of US troops evacuated from Iraq have been diverted to positions in Jordan opposite a Syrian tank concentration building up across the kingdom's northern border, debkafile reports.The incoming US contingents are housed at the King Hussein Air Base of al-Mafraq, 10 kilometers from the Syrian border. They are the first US boots to hit the ground directly opposite Assad's army, brought there by Bashar Assad's threat to set the Middle East on fire if the pressure against him persists.

Bigheaded from capturing the US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone, Tehran Monday, Dec. 12 announced plans soon for a navy drill to practice closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the most important oil transit channel in the world. Iranian lawmaker Parviz Sorouri said, "Iran will make the world unsafe if the world attacks Iran." The drill will challenge US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's recent warning that Iranian disruptions of Persian Gulf free traffic would be a red line for the US.

Iran is driving a hard bargain for granting Russian and Chinese teams access to the US stealth drone RQ-170 it captured undamaged last week. debkafile reports: The price, they were told, includes advanced nuclear and missile technology, especially systems using solid fuel, the last word on centrifuges for enriching uranium and the S-300PMU-1 air defense system, which Moscow has consistently refused to sell Tehran. Israel's prime minister sent foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman to Moscow to try and stop the deal.

Iran's electronic trap for snaring the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, one of the world's most secret drone programs in almost perfect condition, must be accounted a huge military and intelligence coup and a landmark in the long tussle over Tehran's nuclear program. It may have acquired the technology for its cyber attack from Pakistan, China, or even Russia.

The US is to shelve its covert war against Iran's nuclear program and any plans for a direct military attack until it discovers how Iran came to capture the top-secret RQ-170 reconnaissance drone complete with its secrets. Israel too will have to revamp its plans of attack before risking manned or unmanned aircraft over Iranian air space.

Tuesday, Dec. 6, the US, France and Britain went into concerted action to contain the Syrian crisis before it detonates a regional conflict and deteriorates into civil strife. At the same time, Syria and its neighbors sharply intensified their war preparations, fully expecting diplomacy to fail. In Geneva, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the leaders of Syrian opposition groups that the Obama administration had stepped up its pressure on Assad and now referred to his regime as the "Assad gang."